But the proposed rules were not adopted. A fight against adopting the committee's report was started by Drew of Fresno. Mr. Drew introduced a resolution rejecting the rules submitted by the committee, and substituting the rules of 1907, to govern the session of 1909. Johnson of Sacramento led the defense that rallied to the committee's report. But Johnson's wit failed against the argument which Drew, Callan, Preston, Young and Cattell offered. The gentlemen denounced the rules which the committee had offered as "vicious, despotic and gagging." Drew's resolution was adopted by a vote of 41 to 32, the committee's report rejected and the rules of 1907 accepted for the session of 1909[12]. It was a decided victory for the anti-machine forces, and brought gloom to the scheming machine leaders. But it developed later that not a few who had voted for the Drew resolution were safely machine; while many who had voted against it were anti-machine, but had voted against the resolution under misapprehension of just what it stood for[13]. Although the reform majority in the Assembly could prevent the adoption of the "gag rules," it could not, after it had failed to elect the Speaker, govern the appointment of the committees. By and large, the Assembly committees were controlled as were the Senate committees by machine standbys. The Election Laws Committee, which was to pass upon the Direct Primary bill, was safely in machine hands. Grove L. Johnson, as Chairman of the Judiciary Committee, herded the young lawyers thereon like so many sheep. Johnson was in effect the committee. The Committee on Corporations and the Committee on Common Carriers, before which railroad regulation bills might come, were safely in majority for the machine. One apparent exception to the rule was the Committee on Public Morals, which gave the Anti-Gambling bill its start toward passage. But this committee, which did so much to secure the passage of the Anti-Gambling bill, held up the Local Option bill at Speaker Stanton's request, until the last week of the session, thus making its passage in the Assembly impossible. A curious mistake was made by the machine, when Telfer of San Jose was made Chairman of the Committee on Contingent Expenses. Telfer is not only anti-machine, but possessed of a non-political honesty which proved very distressing to the machine before the session was over. Telfer as Chairman of the committee refused to "O. K." extravagant charges for the materials furnished the Assembly. As a result, bills for hire of typewriters had to be reduced, pencils counted and other astonishing reductions made.